The present invention relates to bio-oil from a feedstock selected from mustard family seeds (family Brassicaceae; e.g., pennycress, camelina, canola), mustard family seeds presscake, mustard family seeds defatted presscake, and mixtures thereof. The bio-oil may be produced by a process involving pyrolyzing (e.g., at a temperature of about 450° to about 550° C. for about 0.1 second to about 5 seconds) the feedstock to produce bio-oil, bio-char and non-condensable gases; removing the bio-char from the bio-oil; condensing the bio-oil; and precipitating the bio-oil.
There is no doubt that the major barrier to the successful production of biofuels is feedstock production and logistics. About 30-50% of ethanol production cost can be attributed to delivering the feedstock to the refinery (Hess, J. R., et al., Biofuels, Bioprod. Bioref., 1: 181-190 (2007)). To meet requirements for the EPA's renewable fuel standards (RFS2) of 2007, which call for 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022, the feedstock challenge must be sustainably met. Out of the 36 billion gallons, corn ethanol is expected to be capped at 15 billion with the remaining 21 billion coming from advanced biofuels from various sources. Oil seeds are already contributing about one-half billion gallons of biodiesel to the RFS with a projected rise to 1 billion gallons by 2022. That means 20 billion gallons of advanced biofuels must come from other resources (e.g., cellulosic; USDA Biofuels Strategic Production Report, Jun. 23, 2010; http://www.usda.gov/documents/USDA_Biofuels_Report—6232010.pdf). USDA is embarking on a massive effort that invests in cross-cutting and trans/multi-disciplinary research efforts in the sustainable feedstock development, preprocessing and feedstock logistics value chain. An array of cellulosic feedstocks Which can be sustainably cultivated on marginal lands and efficiently processed and delivered have been mapped out on a region by region basis. However, efforts to increase oil seeds that are non-food have not been emphasized although they may be noteworthy. Also not accounted fords the potential use of the biomass residue of the oil seed extraction value chain. While some biomass presscakes of certain origins (e.g., soybean and palm fruit) can be a valuable source of protein for animal feed consumption, non-food sources such as jatropha (Jatropha curcas) and some from the mustard family such as pennycress (Thlaspi arvense L.) may not be used as animal feed because of their potential toxicity due to the presence of glucosinolates (Tripathi, M. K., and A. S. Mishra, Animal Feed Sci. Tech., 132: 1-27 (2007)). Pyrolysis of these presscakes might provide added gallons of advanced biofuels to the RFS. Given the high yield and high concentration of oxygenated hydrocarbons (including aromatic compounds), pyrolysis oil may show promise of producing large amounts of fungible biomass-based hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline and diesel by employing conventional petroleum refining techniques like hydrotreating and hydrocracking. However, the use of pyrolysis oil has been limited due to stability problems caused by high oxygen content (typically 40 wt %) and high water content. Therefore a typical pyrolysis liquid produced using conventional techniques from cellulosic feedstocks is acidic and, over time, olgiomerizes, increasing viscosity and presenting storage and use problems (Huber, G. W., and A. Corma, Angew. Chem., 46: 7184-7201 (2007)). While pyrolysis oils may be able to provide the source of aromatics needed for formulating jet-range biofuels, the major barrier facing commercialization of pyrolysis liquids as second generation biofuel source has been their instability. However, we have surprisingly found that pyrolysis oils produced from, for example, oil-seed presscakes (mustard family) have considerably reduced oxygen content making them a viable economic resource for sustainable contribution to the RFS.
We have found that the mustard family (Brassicaceae) oil plants (e.g., pennycress, camelina, canola) can serve as a bridge between futuristic feedstocks such as algae for the production of renewable biofuels. De-oiled seedcake biomass (presscake) from the mustard family have no use as animal feed, but these biomass residues contain residual vegetable oils and possess sufficient calorific value that enables them to provide aromatic compounds to the jet blends but only if stable pyrolysis oils are produced from them using our unique techniques.
We have produced surprisingly stable, partially deoxygenated, pH neutral bio-oils from mustard family seeds (e.g., pennycress seeds), mustard family seed presscake pennycress presscake, camelina presscake), and defatted mustard family seed presscake (e.g., defatted pennycress presscake).